6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 11, 2024

/

God can heal us; we can be healers too

Mark 1:40–45

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched him, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.

He said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”

The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.

Music Meditations

Opening Prayer

Lord we give our lives to you in obedience to your word. May your word and our response to you cleanse and renew us and lead us to eternal life. I pray by name for those who are sick, isolated, rejected, lonely. [Pause and recall those for whom you want to pray, saying after each name: “Heal him/her, O Lord.”] Help me to be a healer in your name. I ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.

Companions for the Journey

Adapted from Jude Siciliano, O.P. in “First Impressions” 2008, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:

The treatment of lepers, as spelled out in the Book of Leviticus today, seems harsh. But let’s not demonize the Israelites. With little understanding of the cause of leprosy, but noticing its awful consequences on the bodies of its victims, the community was frightened of contagion. To keep themselves and their families safe they isolated the sufferers. The diagnosis of leprosy was approximate, to say the least, since any skin lesion, scab or rash might be labeled leprosy. Guided by Leviticus’ code, the Levitical priests were directed to diagnose the symptoms, make a decision and, if the person were thought to have the disease, he or she was to be excluded, ordered to “dwell apart.” Having leprosy was bad enough, but for Mediterranean people of the time exclusion from the community was like death. Without a community a person would be considered a non-person. Indeed, in such a hostile world, where community support and protection were sometimes essential for survival, loss of your community could mean actual death. For Israelites, God was worshiped in the community; being cut off from that community also meant being cut off from God. Added to all this was the belief by many that people so afflicted were being punished for their sin. So, a leper who passed by with the required rent garment, bare head, crying, “Unclean, Unclean!” might just as well have been shouting, “I am a sinner, I am a sinner.” To be cured of leprosy then was like being raised from the dead. The leper needed a life-giving touch from a compassionate God and he got just that when he heard Jesus’ cleansing words and felt his healing touch.

The community wanted its members back as whole and full participants. Thus, a person healed of leprosy would be considered a whole person again. When Jesus healed the leper he was restoring a full person back to the community; in the eyes of his neighbors and family, the man was both physically and spiritually cleansed—no more disease, meant no more sin, which supposedly was the cause of the disease. Jesus freely dispensed his mercy in response to the man’s request, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

By curing the leper Jesus was showing his mastery over sin. But he didn’t want the cure and its accompanying significance to be a private matter between just him and the man. That’s why he told the man to go to the priests for verification (check chapter 14 for the process the priests were to follow). It sounds like Jesus wanted to include the priests and the community in this cure so that they might come to know that someone had arrived who could help them overcome sin and all its consequences. And the consequences of sin are legion. Who hasn’t experienced the effects of the leprosy of sin in our personal and communal lives? The selfishness of sin cuts a person off from family members and friends when: lies are told; goods squabbled over; siblings exhibit rivalry; parents play favorites; spouses argue excessively and don’t seek help; success is measured by the size of income; students cheat in school. Hansen’s disease, the medical name for leprosy, is treatable with drugs. Sin and its fragmenting and isolating effects are not so easily eliminated.

Mark is telling us that each hearer of the gospel experiences Jesus’ compassion and desire to heal us. What he said to the leper is offered to a sinful world and to each of us as well. There it is—we reach out to God through Jesus and ask to be cleansed. Jesus’ quick and willing response to the leper is our reassurance that, once again, he says to us, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

But the leprosy of sin isn’t just a personal affair; its effects shatter the people and nations of the world. Unfortunately, it is too easy to find evidence of this. I am currently on a plane, so I can’t check the internet or reference books for proof positive of the signs of sin’s effects on the world. But I do have a newspaper and the debris left by sin is right there on the front page.

As you might expect these days, the major stories are from the financial world. Here are a few things I read: a major bank cut its losses and withdrew hundreds of millions invested with Bernard Madoff, accused of cheating people of 50 billion dollars. But the bank never informed its investors of its concerns and their notes are “probably worthless.” More from Wall Street: despite the multi billion dollar bailouts and the collapse of some major financial institutions, some of the most prominent names in the business world collected an estimated 18.4 billion in bonuses last year. There was a string of arsons that destroyed 15 inner city houses in Coatesville, Florida. Five teenagers are accused of killing a Latino man and attacking others on Long Island. It is believed still others were involved in the racially-motivated attacks. Several guards are accused of encouraging attacks by prison gangs on teenagers at a juvenile facility. On the sports page today there is still more evidence that some top athletes have used steroids to artificially enhance their abilities. Then, of course, there are Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Gaza, global warming, famine, etc. There is just not enough space to list the evidence of sin and its effects on our world’s people. Will we ever be able to come together as a community, or will our leprosy keep driving us apart, constructing walls and causing us to settle our differences with might?

People who get seriously ill or are infirm for a long time say they feel cut off from the community—the fate of lepers. Society tends to forget these members easily and moves on to other preoccupying concerns. But in our church community we don’t forget our infirm and isolated sisters and brothers. We have volunteers who take the Eucharist to the homebound, those in nursing homes and prisons. These ministers represent us and, through them, Jesus once again reminds them that they are still part of our us. And who are we? We are a community of people always in need of cleansing; always stretching out our hands saying to Jesus, “If you want, you can make us clean.” And he responds quickly and with compassion, as he did for the leper and continues to do for us, “Of course I want to, be clean.”

Further reflection:

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

If you wish, you can make me clean

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

  • Who are the lepers in our society today?
  • Who are the lepers in our church today?
  • One of the side effects of illness, contagious or not, is loneliness. Why is this so?
  • Do I know someone in this situation?
  • Is there someone I need to stretch out my hand to?
  • Has there ever been a time in my life when I recognized the ability of another to help me and accepted that help?
  • How do persons with chronic illnesses or disabilities proclaim the gospel in my faith community?
  • How do we balance faith in the healing power of God with faith in the medical establishment and faith in science?
  • When I ask God for help or a favor, do I understand that God is not obliged to answer?
  • Have I ever been angry at God for not seeming to answer prayers for healing for myself or a loved one?
  • How have I experienced God’s compassion through illness or disability?
  • Jesus breached the law by touching someone who is unclean. When is this unwise, and when is it necessary?
  • How do you know when you should stick up for what you believe and when you should relinquish your own preferences so as to advance the common good?
  • Has there been a time in my life when something so wonderful happened to me that I could not keep it to myself?
  • Why do I think Jesus did not want the cured leper telling others of his cure?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

Just imagine for a moment that you are living in the time of Jesus. You have developed a persistent skin disease, which requires that you to go to the priests in order to be diagnosed. The priests confirm your worst fears. You are a leper. They tell you to rip your garments and go with your hair uncombed to proclaim publicly that you are a sinner. They tell you that you must live outside the village and whenever anyone comes near you have to shout: “Unclean, Unclean” to warn them to stay away. So here you are, alone and shunned by all, agonizing over the fate of your family. The children will probably have to beg, or worse, steal, to put food on the table. You miss them terribly—miss their laughter, their hugs, their kisses as you bid them good night. There are no friends with whom you can talk about this. They want no part of you. Banned from religious gatherings which used to be so much a part of everyday life for you, you are truly alone. The fear and revulsion with which you are viewed keeps you isolated, worrying about your family and wondering if your shame has affected the way people in the village are treating them.

Imagine, then, the courage it must take for you to risk approaching Jesus and speaking to him. Will he shrink away like all the others? Somehow, you have faith that he will not. So you beg him, on your knees: “Lord, if you will it, you can make me clean.” And Jesus, touched in his very soul by the sorry figure you cut in your torn and dirty rags, by the desolation in your eyes, the pain in your heart, or your simple human need, reaches out and touches you. Jesus touches you, a filthy, leprous beggar, and you are healed, not only in your body, but also in your heart and in your relationship to the community. How does that make you feel? Now imagine that you are Jesus. Why do you respond to the leper the way you do? In your own life, how do you respond to: A) your own illness or imperfections and B) those in your life who are desperate, sick, lonely, despairing?

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

From Sr. Barbara Reid, O.P. in “America”:

Those who suffer chronic illness may experience themselves as being outside all of the usual spheres of human activity. As the workplace carries on without them and their family goes about its business, they can feel isolated, out of the loop, helpless to contribute to the daily doings, left alone with their own suffering. While Christianity does not have regulations concerning ritual uncleanness and separation from sick persons, certain contagious conditions may require physical isolation. Even when this is not the case, however, many avoid persons with illness. It can seem to such a person that even God is keeping at a distance. The loneliness can be as bad as or worse than the illness itself.

There are a lot of “lepers” in our society whom people have shunned out of fear or moral superiority: people with AIDS, those in prison and their families, the homeless, immigrants, especially the undocumented ones, the elderly. Try to do what you can about just one other person who might need a friendly face. Be a pen-pal to a death row inmate, go on an immersion trip to the Border or Appalachia, march in a safe and orderly peace demonstration and bombard your congressperson and senator with letters, work in a soup kitchen, when it is safe to do so, visit some patients at the local convalescent hospital whom no one ever goes to see, go to a movie with a person in your living situation no one ever talks to. Be Christ for someone.

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Look at two versions of God helping humanity:

From Exodus 17:8–13:

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Pick out some men to go and fight the Amalekites tomorrow. I will stand on top of the hill holding the stick that God told me to carry.” Joshua did as Moses commanded him and went out to fight the Amalekites, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his arms, the Israelites won, but when he put his arms down, the Amalekites started winning. When Moses’ arms grew tired, Aaron and Hur brought a stone for him to sit on, while they stood beside him and held up his arms, holding them steady until the sun went down. In this way Joshua totally defeated the Amalekites.

From Mark 1:40–42:

A leper came to him [and kneeling down] begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.

Here we see represented two sort of opposing views of what God is like. In Exodus, God demands a superhuman effort on the part of Moses—so difficult that he needs help from his assistants. And if Moses fails, all of Israel will suffer. This is a God that places conditions on granting a petition, even if that petition is for the safety of His entire people of Israel. In Mark, all the leper has to do is trust in God’s/Jesus’ kindness; all he has to do is simply to ask, and the leprosy leaves him immediately. These stories show us what a hard time we have in really understanding God and God’s relationship to us. Some of us lean more to a view of a God who is all powerful, and whom we must appease, and others of us think of God as a dad who understands His child’s pain, and works to alleviate it.
Which idea of God’s nature are you more comfortable with?
Do you toggle between the two views?
How does that work for you?

Poetic Reflection:

The following poem illustrates the sense of isolation one can feel when serious illness takes over your life. (This poem describes suffering and the sudden loss of one’s prior life and powers, but they also celebrate the gifts that arise from the heart of suffering—the importance of the smallest things and the ability to pay fierce attention to them.) Which of the sentiments would apply to the leper in today’s gospel?

“Stranded”

Grasping at the bed’s edge
you cling to the sour pillow
of sand, flounder through
the briny sheets, held
out of your damaged body’s
element. You keep struggling
in the shadows for the right
kind of breath. Something you can never fathom
drove you here. Think hard,
so hard it hurts.
Call out all you want.
You can’t get back to the rest
of your life, to finish it.

—From Words Like Fate and Pain by Karen Fiser

Closing Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.